


In The Shadows

by TheStraggletag



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M, Horror, Rumbelle Revelry, Rumbelle Revelry 2016
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-27 21:57:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8418607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStraggletag/pseuds/TheStraggletag
Summary: There’s a town in Maine, a common as any other. And in the town there is a well. And in the well there is a creature. And though for some it is a monster for a lonely little girl it becomes a friend.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Rumbelle Revelry event at tumblr.

The town of Storybrooke was as quaint as a picture, a sleepy little hamlet in the middle of Nowhere, Maine. Nothing ever happened there, the crime rate was ridiculously low and there and most people lived off provincial scandals to fuel the gossip mill. It was a boring place, by all accounts, a forgettable town full of equally-forgettable people. But the town was surrounded by a forest. And in the forest there were some strange ruins. And inside those ruins, hidden by moss and overgrown nightshade bushes, there was a well. It was ancient, half-crumbled on one side and full of scratches, but when people looked into it there was nothing but darkness, as if it was somehow bottomless.

Everyone in town knew about the well, and the story attached to it. Local lore said a demon lived inside, a spindly, spidery thing made of scales and leathers. Malicious to the core, it was bound to trick those foolish or desperate enough to try to engage it. For the creature granted wishes, from the most insignificant to the greatest ones, though the size of the wish would determine the size of the payment. It was a lesson the people of Storybrooke taught their children religiously once they were old enough to understand. They would tell them about Mr Knight, who wanted gold to please his upper-class sweetheart and was made into a gold statue, which his fiancée had later buried in lieu of a corpse. Or about Mr Grey, who had asked to preserve his good looks from the ravages of time only to have them be burned away in a fire whose origins had never been explained. The later story particularly scared the children, since old man Grey still lived in town and the glimpse of him the kids could see from when he'd gaze out the window was enough to scare them for life.

But though the children of Storybrooke were sufficiently scared to mostly know better than to wish for things the adults were not as diligent. In spite of common sense and the repeated pleas from others every now and then someone would try to call on the imp for a wish, convinced either of their ability to trick the demon into forfeiting the price or to pay it without a problem. It was never the case, though, and so, in time, the citizens of Storybrooke grew too weary of the task, and never wished big.

Until the time, that was, that a florist and his daughter arrived to town, though there was no sign of the wife and mother other than a look of sadness about their faces. Maurice French had left Australia determined to make a fresh start for himself and his little rosebud, his precious Belle. He'd thought it best to leave their old life behind them and escape the memories of the months where his Colette had been a shell of her former self, cancer slowly eating her from the inside out. He dreaded that grief would do the same to him so he'd escaped, had told himself it was the best thing to do for himself and for Belle too, but a few months in Storybrooke had yielded poor earnings, a cramped, messy house that was far from feeling like a home and isolation for his daughter. He knew Belle was... strange, and that it took a while for children to warm up to her. But he'd hoped it would be different in Storybrooke. That a place so different from their hometown could give them a vastly different life.

It was then that, surprisingly, Mayor Mills seemed to take an interest in him. It was nice of her, busy as she was with her work and her young daughter, to become so concerned for their small family and their insignificant business. It was her that introduced him to a local bowling league, telling him that getting to know the people of Storybrooke was the best way to get new costumers. And through the Friday night bowling nights he found out about the town's unique brand of folklore. It felt nice to relax and hang out with new friends, get a bit drunk and talk of sports and the weather so when one night after a few beers at the local bar the subject got turned from football season to local legends he didn't question it. It was a windy night, perfect for some ghost stories, after all, so he let the other men spin him a tale of a well in the woods, and its unique inhabitant. And after a few more beers he even followed them when they all decided to show him the spot and let himself be led through the woods until he was alone in the middle of the woods, an old well in front of him. He thought how great would it be if the local legends were right and there was, indeed, a magical solution to his troubles.

"What if there were? What price would you be willing to pay?"

The voice seemed to be carried by the wind, a whisper right next to his ear and a faraway echo at the same time. It was little more than a hiss, sand-papery and unpleasant but oddly captivating. And, obviously, no more than a drunken figment of his imagination. So, trying to get into the spirit of things, he whispered his wish for prosperity into the lip of the well, trying to get rid of the trickle of fear making its way up and down his spine.

"Prosperity... such a hefty wish would be worth your most beautiful rose, wouldn't it?"

He leaned over the well, sure there was someone inside it. Maybe one of the guys, playing an elaborate trick. Probably some stupid sort of initiation for the newbie.

"Yeah, sure, whatever. I'm out of here, guys."

He stumbled home, the sudden drop in temperature keeping him alert till he could stumble home, to a house still only half-unpacked and freezing. And as he lay in bed and tried to sleep his mind conjured up the image of his Osiria rose bush, which he had cultivated and gifted to Colette to celebrate their first anniversary. She had loved that rose bush, but he'd gladly see it wither and die if it'd mean having the shop be a success.

Not that it'd happen, of course.

Belle had tried to be brave after her mother died. She'd promised her, that she'd be brave for her papa's sake, to make things easier on him. That's what she clung to on the plane ride to their new home, while unpacking her things in her new room with the peeling wallpaper and the creaky floor, after her first day of school, when she became convinced she wouldn't make a single friend. It was hard, and made Belle very tired, but she forced herself to practice smiling on the way home from school, to eat whatever her papa attempted to cook in the kitchen and to make do whenever she ran out of clean clothes or her papa forgot to pack lunch for her. She was quiet and well-behaved and very good at pretending that she considered cleaning and doing the dishes fun. And every time her papa smiled at her, even if it was a tired, faded sort of smile, she felt incredibly proud.

After a while it became easier. She got better at vacuuming and getting grease out of plates, and learned to stock up on bread, peanut butter and jelly always for emergency sandwiches to bring to school for lunch if needed. She discovered the school's library, which gave her both access to unread books and a place to go to during recess so she wouldn't have to be worried about the teacher seeing her alone and calling her papa with concerns about her social life. In the end it had paid off. Little by little, slowly but surely, her papa had become more and more animated, as business started booming. The worried lines around his eyes began to disappear and he began to talk animatedly at dinnertime about flowers, as close to his heart as books were to Belle's. Though young the child was wise to pick up on the money worries, the way her father would count pennies at the market and fret whenever he got a new bill in the mail. The relief that came with her father surprising her with fresh pastries from the expensive-looking bakery on Main Street one afternoon was sweeter than the treat itself. It was then that Belle thought, for the first time since her mother had died, that she could possibly be happy again.

It was with a lighter heart and a sense of childish glee that Belle crept out of her room late that same night, making sure to skip the second to last step, the one that creaked. She was careful not to make a peep as she climbed up a chair and reached out to where his father had kept the remaining pastries, rooting around till she found the cherry bar she'd been too stuffed to eat a few hours earlier. Above her the kitchen lights flickered, threatening to go out altogether and a shadow crept up the wall behind her.

"Little piggies are ripe for the slaughter."

The voice was barely more than a hiss, and raspy, as if from lack of use. It had an effect akin to the scratch of nails against a blackboard, but Belle merely rolled her eyes, a small smile on her lips.

"Hi, Rumple."

A shrill giggle answered her, the sort of sound that would put fear in most people's heart. Belle merely stepped down from the chair and moved towards the fridge in search of milk. The shadow followed her, acquiring a more defined shape. It was thin and spindly, full of sharp edges, as if it was some sort of terrifying shadow puppet meant to scare children in cautionary tales.

"Good children don't get out of their beddies at night. The dark is full of nasty things, princess."

"Like you?"

The child seemed far from impressed or intimidated, and the shadow took offence.

"I've skinned wee children for less, you know? Come to think of it I'm getting a little hungry and you're looking particularly pudgy tonight, little piggy."

Something poked Belle on the side, making her giggle. She had been scared of Rumple at first, terrified even. But for all his grizzly appearance, his off-putting voice and his dark humour, he had become a welcomed companion to Belle. He had been her close confidant, the person she'd turned to when all the worry and the sadness inside her had threatened to choke her. It had been that overwhelming need to confide on someone that had made her look beyond her fear and whisper back to the voice in the darkness.

"You're all talk."

She stuck her tongue out at him, startled but not scared when something raspy brushed against it.

"Wasn't all talk when I promised you I'd take care of your father's shop, was it? Ungrateful child."

"I'm sorry." Her voice was muffled by the bite of pastry she was still chewing, though she managed to convey her honest contrition. The shadow raked its spidery fingers through the girl's hair, the touch ghostly against her scalp.

"Hush now, precious, and tell old Rumple about your day. Has that mean old lady at school been giving you trouble still?"

Belle's grade teacher was horrid. She encouraged the other students to mock Belle's studious nature, made a show of never calling on her in class when her hand was raised, and more than once had openly accused her of having someone do her homework for her. She'd call her prideful and would openly despair about the girl's inability to connect with her classmates, further driving a divide between her and them. Belle had tried to tell her dad, so he could ask that she be moved to another class, but he'd dismissed her pleas and Belle had dared not reveal the full extent of the problems at school. So instead Belle had told Rumple all about Mrs Ratchet. He was a sympathetic listener, cooing when she became sad, cackling in glee when she got angry and promising and promising murder and mayhem when she cried.

"She was okay."

Belle made sure to keep her face lowered, eyes covered by her hair. It was getting a bit too long and though she tried to remind her papa he needed to take her to get a haircut it always seemed to slip his mind. Rumple liked it that way, liked running his shadowy fingers through the length of it and play cat's cradle with it.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire. What did she do, precious?"

The child ignored the question, reaching up to snag another cookie. A shadowy claw got a hold of her arm, turning it sideways till the moonlight illuminated her pale underarm. The finger-shaped bruises were in sharp contrast with her almost translucent skin and she felt a chill go through her.

"She laid her hands on you."

The words were uttered in the calmest of voices, the one that Belle had truly learned to fear. But it was a comfort too, in a way. To feel him getting angry for her, to have someone care so. In a slow, halting tone she told him about going to the library during lunch break and how Mrs Ratchet had found her there and dragged her by the arm to the cafeteria to eat with "the normal kids". It had been humiliating and painful and Belle had burst into tears and hid in the kitchen as soon as she could. Rumplestiltskin gathered her close, his cold, ghostly presence pressing in on her in a way that should have felt scary but was rather nice, and crooned nonsense into her ear. He promised her he would take care of everything, would take care of her.

"Hush now, little piggy. Rumple's gonna make it all better."

Belle didn't see Mrs Ratchet after that. A substitute teacher came in the next day, and told the class Mrs Ratchet was sick and would be absent for a while. After a few days her father informed her the school had called and said a new teacher would be coming in, since Mrs Ratchet had had an accident of some sort and would be missing the rest of the school year. Rumours spread like wildfire in school, some mentioning a car accident and others a fall down some stairs. Whatever happened must have been bad, judging by the look on her father's face when he told her the news. That night, safe under the covers, Belle waited till the lights flickered and she felt a chill down her spine, signs that Rumple was about.

"Did you hurt Mrs Ratchet?"

At first there was only silence. A beat later the shadow laughed, a shrill sort of cackle that managed to sound both mischievous and bone-chilling.

"I made it all better, princess. Are you pleased?"

It was on the tip of her tongue to say no, because she was a good girl and good people didn't like when others got hurt, especially when they were hurt on purpose by others. It was what her mother had taught her, to be good and kind and brave. But her mother wasn't there and her father was too overwhelmed by life to really be of any help and Rumple had listened to her and comforted her and protected her. She didn't have to fear Mrs Ratchet again and above all she felt relieved, as if she'd had a balloon inside her chest and it'd just deflated.

"Yeah."

It felt a bit like a betrayal to admit it, as if by doing so she was pushing the memory of her mother further away. But it was also liberating and even exciting to confess it. Rumple purred in approval, causing Belle to giggle. She felt a lick of fear, as she often did with Rumplestiltskin, but it was overshadowed by her fascination for him.

School without Mrs. Ratchet was better. Miss Honey, her replacement, doted on Belle, recognising her talents and potential and encouraging to develop them. It didn't change her relationship with her classmates but it helped nonetheless. Things at home began to improve dramatically too. There was more food on the fridge, for one, and her papa was in a better mood, busy with the flower shop to the point that he had to hire an assistant and a housekeeper, a kind old lady, to take care of the house chores, do the cooking and look after Belle. But though Mrs Potts was kind and matronly and affectionate the girl liked to spend most of her time up in the attic, with Rumplestiltskin. At first he only appeared at night, and for a few minutes, but slowly and surely his presence in her life grew until it felt like a constant. He shied away from the light and was often nowhere to be seen during the day, though Belle often felt his eyes watching her. He'd leave gifts scattered about, shiny moonstones and rare blooms, lovely bows for her hair, and wooden carvings in all shapes and sizes.

He'd play with her too, hide and seek when the sun sunk low. Mrs Potts would watch her little charge run around the house, would hear her talk to the shadows and be thankful someone so lonely had such a powerful imagination. At night Rumple would encourage her to sneak out and catch moths for Belle's growing insect collection. Later she'd lay in bed and listen to him spin her stories. Not the happy-ever-after ones that appeared on children's books, the ones about princesses falling in love with princes. His stories were much more interesting and real, full of betrayal, jealousy and pettiness. They made her laugh at inappropriate times, and cry and feel inexplicably angry.

The more time she spent with Rumplestiltskin the more he seemed to grow attuned to her moods and needs, always knowing the right thing to say and the right token to gift her with. So she wasn't very surprised when Tommy Hiffer, who liked calling her names and make fun of her for not having a mother, fell down the jungle gym one day and broke his right leg in three places. Or when Tiffany Beecham, who was a better speller than Belle because she was still used to the Australian spelling, got food poisoning and dropped out of the school's spelling bee, allowing Belle to easily win. To her it felt fair that the scales evened out a bit. She had no friends, no mother and a father who was too busy with work to pay her much attention. To compensate the universe had given her Rumple, and he was zealous in his defence of her.

It didn't even bother her when people started to talk, when word spread around the playground that it was better not to mess with Belle French. The bullying stopped almost completely and even the adults around her seemed to give her a wide berth, as if they thought her dangerous. To Belle, who had learned to fear grown-ups, specially Madame Mayor, who always seemed to be around, always watching, it felt nice to be looked after. It didn't matter that it all seemed to only increase her isolation, to push her closer to Rumple and further away from everyone else as long as it also meant that she could stop being brave and instead seek comfort and safety with Rumplestiltskin like she had done so before with her mom.

Though observant Belle was also young and rash. She shrugged off the increasing stares and double-takes from the adults, the whispers that followed her around. She began to wear Rumple's ribbons in her hair and speak to him out in the open, whenever he'd seek out her company during the day. She'd laugh by herself and talk out loud when she seemed to be alone. The only time she was ever afraid was when she would catch the calculating stare of Mayor Mills, who seemed increasingly annoyed by Belle's presence in town. It was why her heart skipped a beat when the bell rang one evening and she opened the door to encounter her, fashionably dressed in black as always and smelling heavily of Chanel N° 5, which Belle's grandmother had often worn. Mrs Potts quickly came to usher her upstairs as the mayor strolled in and took over the living room, loudly announcing she wished to speak with Mr French and would wait as long as she needed too. The housekeeper called the florist while Belle kept vigil from atop the stairs.

It was a tense conversation, from what Belle could tell once her papa arrived and the mayor all but pounced on him. Belle could hear little, but she did catch her name several times, and her papa looked angry, shocked and scared at the same time. A cold hand wrapped itself around Belle's heart, the feeling vaguely reminiscent of when she'd watched the ambulance take her mother away to the hospital, with her papa telling her she would be back in no time. She hadn't. She hoped the feeling would go away once the mayor did, but it wasn't so. Belle watched from a distance as her papa called Mrs Potts and had a lengthy and hushed conversation with her, his body language showcasing his unease and agitation. Dinner, of course, was a stilted, awkward affair, with her father watching her every move like a hawk, almost as if he was trying to figure something out about her. Afraid of what he'd do to her papa if she told Belle made sure not to mention anything to Rumple, though worry grew inside her like a weed.

The next few days were ripe with tension. To her surprise her father came home earlier than usual that week, and seemed to be trying mend the rift that had appeared between them when her mother had died. He helped her with her homework, read to her and even took her to the park to feed the ducks. It was nice, and for a moment it made her forget about the mayor's visit. Rumple, on the other hand, was remarkably unhappy about the new arrangement, since it left her with little time to play with him. He grew incredibly jealous and snippy, making veiled insults at her father, specially about how convenient it was that he suddenly remembered he had a daughter. A mixture of guilt and a slight dose of fear that Rumple would do something to her papa, not something like what he did to Miss Ratchet but bad enough, prompted her to escape from his father's newly-smothering attention from time to time to go play with Rumple upstairs, tucked away in her room.

It was on one such occasion, while Rumple was telling a particularly funny story and Belle was laughing and pleading him to go on, that her papa burst into the room suddenly, looking around before finding her on the floor, Rumple having scurried away.

"Who were you talking to?"

Belle was wise enough to know the truth could get her into trouble.

"No one."

Though he looked unconvinced he glanced around her room one last time, gently reminded her it was bedtime and closed the door behind him. For some reason Belle felt incredibly relieved, not even giving the fact that he hadn't tucked her into bed much thought. Her mama had usually been the one to do it, anyway, he probably thought she was too old for that sort of stuff. But Rumple was there, with his shadowy, spidery fingers that couldn't quite touch her, to coax her to bed and finish his story, keeping up a mindless stream of chatter till she fell asleep.

Belle had almost forgotten all about the strange episode when her father came home one day, went immediately to the hothouse to check on some of his most prized blooms and came almost immediately back, thundering. He had a brief and tense conversation with Mrs Potts, who looked visibly upset, though trying to hide it, and then strode angrily towards his child. He'd never raised a hand to Belle but he was a tall, beefy man, and so naturally threatening when angered.

"Where you at the hothouse today, Belle?"

Her papa knew of her predilection for looking at the flowers, sometimes sitting down on the floor to read. She liked the smell of dirt mingled with the scent of flowers. But she had only peeked in that day, too in a hurry to get her homework done to have free time in the evening. Her father, however, did not believe her. Gently yet firmly he grabbed her by the arm and took her to the hothouse, which was in chaos. Petals and leaves were strewn everywhere, as if someone had taken shears to all the flowers. The only flowers untouched in the carnage were the blossoming Blue Aimable tulips, Belle's favourites.

"You're telling me you didn't do this, Belle?"

She shook her head, feeling her insights turn to lead.

"Are you saying Mrs Potts did this?"

She shook her head again, too scared to speak.

"Who then? Who, Belle?"

The girl couldn't quite keep it inside, especially with her papa demanding answers as forcefully as he was. She mumbled the name of the culprit at first, but it only caused her father to ask her to speak up.

"Rumple. It was Rumple."

The story stumbled out of her lips then, the whole of it. She told him all she knew about Rumple, without really meaning to or knowing why. Her papa grew pale and worried, looking at her strangely.

"That's enough fantasy, Belle. You're too old for imaginary friends and acting up in this way."

Belle never knew quite why those words struck so with her, but they did. She told her papa about it all, about Mrs Ratchet, Tommy Hiffer, Tiffany Beecham and some of the others she knew of. She told him how Rumple protected her and had been the one to improve business at the flower shop. Her father looked paler and paler, finally telling her to go to her room and stay there. She obeyed, curling up in bed and crying, fear and dread clawing at her.

She didn't go to school the following day, nor the day after that. Her father stayed home too, locking himself up on his study, where he mostly watched TV, and made many phone calls. Mrs Potts seemed upset as well, but tried to cheer her up with games and pastries. Fearing he might do something to her father the way he'd done with other people Belle kept everything from Rumple, pretending there was nothing strange going on.

She regretted it one morning when Mrs Potts, eyes bloodshot as if she'd been crying, dressed her up in warm layers and hugged her tight before letting her go with her papa. They drove out of Storybrooke, the silence stifling. Though the ride seemed to take forever they finally arrived at a large, nondescript white building and it was only when they were walking towards the entrance that Belle noticed the small suitcase her papa was carrying and panic began to really set in. They were met at the door by a severe-looking woman, who introduced herself as Mother Superior and gave them a tour of the grounds. Her papa made a big deal of pointing out the lushness of the gardens and the sheer vastness of them. And finally, he went down on his knees and grabbed Belle gently by the shoulders, not really looking at her in the eye.

"Bluebelle, listen to me. You're going to stay in here for a while, alright? Mother Superior going to take good care of you, as will the other sisters and doctors. They're going to help you. I'm sorry, sweet pea, I'm so sorry I didn't notice that you were having problems with mama being gone and all. But you're going to get better and then you can come home and we'll work things out, okay? You're not gonna need any imaginary friend anymore, you'll have me, I promise."

It was too late to run, but Belle tried to anyway. She pried herself from her papa's grip, almost tripping before dodging Mother Superior and making for the gate. She screamed Rumplestiltskin's name over and over, hoping that the repetition would make up for the distance. She shouted her name even as warms wrapped themselves around her and someone picked her up rather forcefully. She lashed out, kicking and wiggling as hard as she could until she felt a sting on her left arm and slowly everything became blurry and slowly the world turned black.


	2. Chapter 2

She remembered little about the mental hospital. Almost nothing about her early years there, which were a blur of drugs, cold showers and beatings. The sisters weren't supposed to, not really, but some did anyway. The old ones were the handiest with the corporal punishments, the younger novices thought it too barbaric. And the doctors kept an eye out for that sort of stuff, every now and then, so no one wanted too many questions asked. After a while she remembered calming down, learning that the best way to avoid pain was to draw as little attention as possible. As the years passed she learned what answers would please the psychiatrists, which orderlies were to be avoided at all costs and what food was good to eat- the fruit was always fresh, the bread not so much. So when she became a teenager she managed to gain a room for herself at a nice wing of the hospital, away from some of the most terrifying realities of a mental hospital. And she managed to gain a friend, sister Astrid, who seemed genuinely kind and sympathetic.

It had been Astrid the one to tell her, when she'd turned sixteen, that it was her father's insistence that kept her committed, even if the doctors were recommending she be released to his care. It was also Astrid the one that helped her take the steps necessary to release herself upon turning eighteen, with the help of some of the doctors at the hospital and a lawyer friend of Astrid's, Annabelle Green. Thankfully no one put up much of a fuss about it and the process went down smooth, particularly when it was made aware that Belle had been left a considerable amount of money by her maternal grandmother, who had passed away sometime after Belle's sixteenth birthday. The money was put into a trust fund for when Belle turned twenty-one with a clause that allowed her to receive the money once she turned eighteen if there was any pressing financial need for it, which there was.

From then on Belle had done the utmost to leave her past behind. She'd gotten her GED and had enrolled in NYU for her undergraduate degree and in Columbia for her masters, doing her best to never think of her father. He'd tried to contact her at first, until she'd made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. Even though she barely remembered her time in Storybrooke and was very fussy on the details that had led her to be locked up in a mental asylum it was pretty clear he had meant to leave her there indefinitely. Sometimes she wondered what she could have done to make him disown her like that, but nothing came to mind, nothing that could possibly make her understand him.

The healthiest thing for her became pretending she had no father, and turning all her attention and energy into her studies. Books had kept her sane so she decided to major in library science, with a minor in English Lit. She'd stayed in the city after that, working for a rather exclusive antique books dealer who didn't mind much that aside from cataloguing, restoring and tracking books she would avidly read some of them. There was something great about old texts, there was a reverence to them she could never quite shake off, no matter how used she got to handling incunable tomes.

It was a good life, and Belle grew close to her boss and his wife, the Bensingers, who would often invite her to lunch on weekends like she was their granddaughter. Apart from them and from occasional contact with Astrid Belle didn't much socialise. People made her nervous, a product of her rather unique late childhood and teenage years. She went out on dates, every now and then, mostly to appease Miriam, Mrs Bensinger, but those ended up amounting, at best, to one-night stands. To make it more than a few days with Will, her one serious relationship to date, she'd had to force herself to give it time, to wait till lukewarm interest blossomed into something else, something more. And, of course, she'd had to turn a blind eye to Will's obvious lingering affection for his ex. He'd eventually gotten back together with her, and they had remained on friendly terms. Though Belle didn't miss will per se she did miss the idea of Will, the hope that eventually she'd feel for him what books kept promising she would for some lucky person one day.

But other than a rather poor love life Belle was content, for the most part. There were some sequels from her stay at the asylum, of course, some scars she tried hard to ignore, a preference for overly-hot showers, overreaction to someone grabbing her in any way, especially when it was done unexpectedly. And an emptiness of some sort, as if something had been removed from deep within her, that never quite went away. But other than that her life was mostly a good one, the result of a lot of therapy and effort on her part.

And then her father died.

* * *

 

There was no surge of strong emotion when the news came, no grief, anger or relief. Belle gave herself time to process it, talked it out with her therapist, who she had stopped seeing a few years ago but who had encouraged her to reach out if something major occurred in her life, and even tried to force herself to feel something, to no avail. She would have put it out of her mind altogether if it hadn't been for the phone call from Spencer, Midas and Associates, asking her to come to Storybrooke to take possession of Maurice French's estate, which he had bequeathed to her in his will. It was a considerable inheritance, apparently, and legal matters required her presence there as soon as it could be arranged. It was easy to ask for a few days off from work, pack a few things, rent a car and make the drive there.

Belle had never considered going back to Storybrooke. She barely remembered the place, in the vaguest of forms. Not even a cursory drive around helped her jog her memories. It looked like any other small American town, really, nothing stood out as particularly interesting. She, on the other hand, seemed to be an object of curiosity, since every person turned to look at her on the street or stared at her at the local diner. Abigail Midas, the up and coming Junior associate handling her father's estate and hoping to get a promotion out of it, explained that it was rare for Storybrooke to receive visitors.

"Besides, you went away so quickly, no explanation given. And your father would get so mad when someone would ask about his daughter. You've been a constant topic and the local gossip mill, I'm afraid. It doesn't help that your father died so unexpectedly. A drunken fall down the stairs is dramatic enough without the reappearance of a long lost daughter."

Thankfully Abigail did not feel the need to linger on the matter, quickly changing the topic to that of Belle's inheritance. She had expected it to consist of the flower shop, the house and perhaps some valuable items, but she was surprised to discover that her father had invested rather heavily and profitably in the stock market, and had as a result amassed quite a bit of money. Some of it was still invested and Abigail recommended her to talk to her father's accountant about it. A large chunk was deposited in an account which would soon be under her name and some money had gone into acquiring a bit of real estate in Storybrooke. Some houses, apparently, and other buildings. Some were occupied while others remained vacant.

It was dark when she left the lawyer's office so Belle hurried back to her former home. On the way to the car she spotted a woman in a wheelchair who looked strikingly familiar. Though definitely of a certain age the woman seemed stronger and more vivacious than one would have expected. Her hair was tinted very dark and her face was made up to perfection, her lips perhaps a tad too dark. And her eyes were fixated on her, hiding some deep emotion that Belle could not quite make out. She hastily got into her car and drove the scant blocks to her father's old place. It was neatly kept, her mother's rose bushes still decorating the entrance. The inside was luxuriously furnished, though in a tasteless, tacky way that Belle could easily associate with her father, a man who had worn a baseball cap almost constantly and who thought a singing fish was the height of interior design.

The house had been cleaned, something Abigail had arranged for with Belle's permission and it was a small relief. It smelled of lemons instead of her papa's cologne and did not have that musty feel to it. Her room seemed smaller than she remembered, which was to be expected. To her surprise it looked very much like her room back in Australia, with the same bed, writing desk and white, slightly-chipped vanity. It was second-hand furniture that as a child had looked decadently luxurious. All her stuffed animals were neatly lined up atop a chest of drawers, and her rather shabby and now tiny-looking bookcase was still in place, full to the brim with books. He had kept it all, as she realised when she opened her wardrobe and saw small dresses and a couple of coats hanging there. Hers, from a long time ago.

It struck her as deeply puzzling that her father, who had literally cast her away, who had done everything in his power to keep her locked away for over eight years, had kept all of her things. The room felt comfortable and safe, so she unpacked there, deciding she was small enough to fit in the bed. As she readied for bed the lights in the room flickered and she had a sudden and strong sense of Deja-vu, followed by a formless sort of uneasiness. Despite it she slept peacefully, like she hadn't in years. Her dreams filled with vaguely-threatening images of shadows on walls, claws on her shoulders, but for some reason she felt no fear, rather the opposite. And there was a voice, calling her name, welcoming her back. A hissing sort of voice, the sort that did not seem human at all.

* * *

 

During the following days Belle spent most of her time cataloguing everything in the house, deciding what to keep, what to sell and what to donate to charity. Most things fell either on the second or third category, but she eagerly separated most of her mother's belongings, which amounted to some jewellery and lots of books, what her father had chosen to bring from Australia. She also took her time examining the papers Miss Midas had given her, noticing her father owned a large chunk of forested area, a Queen Anne house on the edge of town, a warehouse near the docs, a small apartment building and the old library, which was closed down and had been for years. The warehouse and the apartment building were being rented and brought in a small but tidy sum of money each month. The Queen Anne was vacated, likely too rich for any local taker, and thus was haemorrhaging money on property taxes alone. She decided to check it out soon.

It was a gruelling job, since the house was terribly cluttered. Things seemed to pop up everywhere, which meant that Belle was constantly bumping and knocking into things. And once, when the doorbell startled her, she even cut her forearm on the sharp edge of a silver picture frame, which she immediately placed on the charity pile. When she rushed to open the door, holding a mostly-clear rag to her arm, she found a strange woman holding an apple pie like some sort of offering. Though it looked homemade the woman didn't strike Belle as a homemaker: dressed in a tight, stylish dark blue dress and a fitted blazer, Jimmy Choo’s on her feet and not a hair out of place, she looked like a businesswoman through and through.

She introduced herself as Mayor Mills, which for some reason frightened her.

"Mayor Regina Mills. You might have known my mother, Cora. She was mayor around the time you first came to Storybrooke, before your... confinement."

The way she spoke that last word gave Belle pause. She hadn't thought about the possibility of people knowing for sure where she'd been sent as a child, but the mayor seemed to be well aware of it.

"I came to offer my condolences and my famous apple pie to go with them. It's to die for, believe me." The mayor stopped, stretching her lips into what was a well-crafted smile. "Are you planning on staying long?"

She had thought, at first, that settling her father's affairs would be a matter of a few days. Now she knew that was not the case.

"At least a few weeks. I have some vacation time, and it'll be good not to rush into anything. Besides I want to see a little bit of Storybrooke. I was so little when I last was here I hardly remember a thing."

The blinding smile dimmed a little.

"Oh, I see. Well, don't go deep into the woods, dear. It's easy to get lost there, and terribly unsafe."

Though the encounter was nothing but polite it still unsettled Belle. There was something about the intense way Madam Mayor had looked at her that had disturbed her deeply. Like the old woman in the wheelchair, only with far less malice. In spite of her misgivings she had some of the pie for dinner. It was amazing, she'd give Madam Mayor that. After a hot shower, made slightly unpleasant by her cut stinging quite a bit, she tucked herself into bed, exhausted enough not to care about the flickering of the lights. Just as she was about to drift off she heard a voice, raspy and sibilant, calling her name. Her dreams were more vivid that night. Claws about her shoulders, then around her waist, then her arm being raised and a raspy, hot tongue licking her repeatedly.

"I've missed the taste of your blood, princess."

The pet name tugged at her memory, willing her to recall something.

"Someone used to call me that... a long time ago. A... a friend."

She could remember now, being in her room and talking to someone, laughing with them. But she couldn't recall a face or a name. Something starting with... R...

She woke up drenched in sweat, something on the tip of her tongue that she forgot as soon as the last whispers of sleep faded away. It wasn't until she was getting dressed that she noticed her cut was gone. There was a moment of panic when she thought of the possibility that she had imagined it there in the first place. Eight years in a mental asylum had made her wary of her senses, had made her doubt her sanity. But when she went to the kitchen she spotted the bloodied rag and the concrete evidence filled her with relief. Though freaky, accelerated healing was a lot better than hallucinating injuries.

* * *

 

Determined to get out of the house and clear her head she set out to inspect her vacant properties, the Queen Anne and the old library. The moment she stepped out of the house, though, she almost tripped over a mass of fur and sharp angles. It was a dog, a mutt, rather large and yet incredibly thin, to the point that it seemed almost impossible for it to still be alive. Its fur was matted and completely missing in places, as if suffering from mange or some other condition. But his golden eyes, when it opened them, were bright and lucid.

"Hey, there, little one."

The dog was big enough to be frightening in spite of its lack of weight, but Belle thought there was a sort of friendliness about it. True enough the mutt sniffed her thoroughly and, tail wagging, licked her fingers. She petted him for a while, telling him what a good boy he was while it whined and licked at her. When she finally turned away and began to walk towards the Queen Anne it followed her. After a while she dropped all pretext of not noticing and called him to her side, a hand stroking the top of its head as they walked. The poor fellow seemed a bit touch-starved and Belle was surprised to realise so was she. She'd met some people while in town and was on friendly terms with some, like Ruby Lucas or Ariel Benson, whose second-hand store had been greatly benefited by Belle's efforts to clean out her father's house. But to most people, as she had soon realised, she was Maurice's crazy daughter, who he had had to have committed. The Flaky Belle French, was apparently the most commonly-used term. So she kept away, thinking that surely it would be a matter of time before people realised she was perhaps odd, but far from mentally unstable.

The Queen Anne was a beauty. A bit unusual in colour, yes, and in need of urgent repairs, but exquisitely made and far enough from the rest of the town to be very peaceful. The library too was beautiful, in an altogether different way. It had been completely neglected, but a quick survey of the inside let her know that quite a bit of the book collection could be salvaged, and the bookcases stood strong and sturdy. A more thorough search unearthed also a collection of old, leather-bound books, all to do with the history of the town and the region, ledgers, botanical journals and other priceless texts, most of them hand-written. It was the discovery of those books that first put the idea in her mind of staying in Storybrooke. Though the people were prickly and distrustful of her, there was something about the town that called to her, that entreated her to stay. As if sensing the turn of her thoughts the mutt beside her whined and nosed her hands, licking her fingertips.

"Well, it's nice to see I'll have a steadfast friend in town if I decide to stay."

But the mutt disappeared as she made her way back home, much to her disappointment. Specially because she came across the lady in the wheelchair again. She'd learned that it was Cora Mills, who had once been mayor of Storybrooke. Ruby, who as a waitress in the most visited eatery in Storybrooke was privy to all the gossip in town, told her it was mostly Cora Mills the one talking about that "flaky French girl" and her dangerously unbalanced state of mind. It unnerved her, the old matron's keen interest in her, so she hurried along the street, not making eye-contact. But the encounter elicited an all-too-familiar feeling, a certainty that she did not allow herself to think about. She had forgotten something, something important. She had lost it somewhere in the wretched asylum, some vital memory. And Storybrooke was the place where she could possibly find it. That night she made a call to Mr Bensinger, requesting an extended leave from work.

* * *

 

The following morning the mutt was back, scratching at the back door till she let him in. She set down some water for him but he didn't drink, choosing instead to follow her around the house as she tackled cluttered room. As she packed stuff and moved full boxes to the foyer she kept thinking about what it was about her time in Storybrooke that was so important and she had forgotten. After all she had only lived there for a few months as a child, almost but not quite a whole year. And the "treatment" she had received right after at the hands of the doctors and the sisters at the hospital had wiped out most of it.

The urge to remember became a sort of pressure right behind her left eye, and it changed intensity depending on which room on the house she was in. It was almost non-existent in her father's room, light in the kitchen and living-room, more intense in the attic and almost unbearable in her room. It also happened to be the room Mutt seemed to like the most, lying down on the floor and rolling around, trying to her get attention by clawing at the floorboards with his rather long nails. She finally made him stop when she realised some of the wood was loose, which hadn't been apparent before. Feeling like she was onto something she removed the boards, noticing a red shoebox hiding right beneath, dusty and dirty with age. When she opened it she found ribbons of all colours, sprigs of dried flowers tied together, shiny stones, braided bracelets made out of golden thread and even a necklace, a small teardrop pendant hanging from a thin gold chain. It was a piece of the puzzle, she was sure of it, and on impulse she slipped the pendant around her neck, the feel of it extremely familiar and comforting.

* * *

 

From them on her dreams and half-asleep hallucination became worse. She heard voices in the house... well, one, really, a sibilant, raspy murmur that felt achingly familiar. And she saw things in the shadows too, things moving, shifting around, creeping. Mutt never stayed the night, always left some time in the afternoon, which added to her overall fear, not of being haunted by something, but of imagining things, of losing grasp of reality. It didn't help that her insanity was still the talk of the town, with Cora Mills commenting to whoever wanted to hear her about the flaky French's fragile mental estate. It was mostly because if the talk and out of necessity to feel normal that she accepted the offer of Keith Nottingham to go out. He had cornered her at the supermarket, a bit pushy in his insistence to talk to her, but he'd been very gentlemanly when he'd offered to carry her grocery bags to her house and hadn't overreacted when Mutt had all but lunged at him, all teeth and claws.

It was nice to dress up a bit, put more care into her make-up, don some high-heels and go out. And Keith was charming, if not a bit bland and a tad self-centred. And a heavy drinker, though she supposed he could be drinking out of nervousness. Given her tendency to dismiss dates while she barely knew them- and taking into account it wouldn't help her reputation to walk out on a date publicly- she decided to stick it out, even as the evening deteriorated further when Keith insisted on going to a dive bar, downing even more beer and getting handsy with her near the lady's room. Her patience ran short somewhere along the third drunken fight he attempted to start so she told him it was late and she was going home.

When he insisted on walking her home she bit her tongue to avoid refusing him. The nightmare was about to be over; she could tolerate him for twenty minutes more or so. He seemed apologetic that she hadn't been having much fun at the date, at least during the last part. Perhaps he was not relationship material, but perhaps they could stay friendly. She needed as many people on her corner as she could manage in this town, particularly since the more time she spent there the less she wanted to leave.

They were near the forest before she realised that they had gotten turned around, heading nowhere near her home. When she pointed this out Keith rammed her up against a nearby tree and attempted to stick his tongue down her throat. He was strong and much bigger than her but blessedly clumsy from the drink and slow to react. Belle shoved her stiletto heel as hard as she could down his foot, taking off the moment Keith's meaty hands released her, heading instinctively for the woods, where she would have a higher chance of losing him. It was pitch black in there and Mayor Mill's warning about getting lost was on the back of her mind but she could hear him behind her, cursing and screaming that she was a lousy tease, that he'd paid for her dinner and drinks and now it was her time to "give it up", willingly or not.

She ditched her shoes when one of the heels snapped, sending her to the ground on her knees. She didn't stop, though, she felt a strange sort of urgency not just to run, but to run somewhere specifically. Somehow she knew where to go, where to turn, as if something was tugging at her insistently, guiding her. Just as Keith was about to catch up, his noisy breathing almost upon her, she reached a clearing. There were some stone ruins there, covered by moss and plants, and an old well. For some reason in her mind the well-meant protection, meant being safe, so she dove for it, curling up on the side of it and closing her eyes.

She didn't know what she expected to happen, did not know what it was about the well that made her feel so secure. She heard Keith's voice closer than ever, almost upon her, and then a loud crack, followed by a thud. Then she felt a craggy, spidery hand combing through her hair, and a voice telling her everything was alright, that she was safe. Shushing her as she cried, rocking her from side to side.

_"Go to sleep, blossom. I've got you, I've got you..."_

* * *

 

She woke up in her room, sunlight pouring from the window. She was groggy at first, confused. Someone had tucked her into bed, snug the way she liked it. Her shoes were by the door, whole and clean and perfect. Her favourite pair, her Louboutin’s, which she had given up on last night. Beside her was Mutt, lying down but not sleeping, rather staring at her with those golden eyes that were achingly familiar.

It was impossible to deny something was up after that, impossible to keep up the denial and the pretence she wasn't hearing and seeing things. There was something going on in Storybrooke and she happened to have easy access to the town's history, owning the library. She spent the next few days locked up there, partly to avoid running into Keith but mostly to do research. There were several books on the history and myth of Storybrooke, mostly hand-written accounts of the goings-on of the town. And though at first everything seemed normal a closer looked reveal a common belief, from which several accounts of incidents in the town drew their explanation. It was some sort of... creature, some kind of demon, that liked in a well, deep in the forest. There was never a mention of his name, only that it was unsafe to speak or write it. Rather people referred to the thing as the Dark One, the Evil Thing, the Creature that lived in the Shadows. He'd grant wishes but at prices so high it always led to heartache and regret. Somehow someone had managed to tie the creature to the well, render him mostly incorporeal and the people of Storybrooke did their best to pretend he wasn't there, waiting, tempting.

The more she read about it the more memories began rushing back and she pieced everything together. She'd had an imaginary friend as a child, a companion, a mate. Rumple. Her Rumple, who had gotten her through the death of her mother, who'd protected her fiercely from anyone and everything. The reason why her father had had her committed. The demon in the well, who was now whispering to her every night, waiting in the shadows for her to acknowledge him. He was real, and the thought was as terrifying as it was welcomed.

Now that she knew she had to talk to it. To him. The idea alone was terrifying, but also exhilarating. Though she knew the rational thing to do would be to leave Storybrooke, put someone in charge of the sale of his father's estate and never go back, she couldn't dream of it. In spite of Cora Mills creeping her out and having to deal with facing Keith Nottingham or the gossip mill she wanted to stay in Storybrooke. Felt safe there, comfortable. And above all she wanted to see Rumple again.

She waited till it was night, making sure not to do anything out of the ordinary. Once she was tucked in bed she waited with baited breath till the lights flickered ominously and once she thought she saw a movement in the shadows she took her chance.

"Rumple? Rumplestiltskin?" She paused, waiting for an answer. "Are you there?"

At first there was nothing. Not a sound, nothing at all. Then, after what seemed like forever, she heard a shrill giggle.

"Finally talking to me, I see."

She spotted a figure in the shadows, rail-thin, almost skeletal, with a shock of curly, unkempt hair, and claws instead of fingers. It was a bit like watching a shadow theatre show, albeit a creepy one.

"I'm sorry. I forgot you. The made me."

"When your father took you away from me. When he cheated his way out of our deal, if only for a while."

It had occurred to Belle, the idea that her father's financial success would be due to a deal with Rumplestiltskin. She couldn't recall her papa ever being good with money, and she remembered them both struggling after her mother died and he spent most of their money on moving them both from Australia to the United States. She remembered Rumple telling her he'd take care of things and their luck changing sometime after that.

"You took care of me."

She heard something skittering around and a moment later she felt thin, bony fingers in her hair, playing with it. Far from scaring her the touch soothed her.

"Of course I did, princess. Now tell old Rumple everything he's missed these past few years."

It seemed almost surreal but talking to Rumplestiltskin was easy as breathing. Once she got past the sheer creepiness of it she felt simply like she was reuniting with an old friend. He was clever, full of dark, twisted humour Belle had always shamefully found funny, and genuinely interested in her. Non-judgemental too, which made sense for a demon, eager for whatever bit of truth she was prepared to relinquish about her.

One chat turned into two, and then into three. As much as Belle knew it was not healthy or smart to keep calling Rumple out she could not help but do so, after during the night and later on during the day. She quickly figured out Mutt was, somehow, a manifestation of him. He was proud about it, telling her just how much power demons needed to maintain corporeal form out of nothingness. Belle soon summarised that Rumplestiltskin was quite powerful, yet highly limited in the exercise of such power.

"I had corporeal form once. Was tricked into slinking in the shadows by a no-good fairy. Condemned to watch the world but not live in it."

"There are fairies?"

Belle felt his feral smile as he pressed his nose and mouth against her neck.

"Not anymore."

Rumplestiltskin was the friend she had always wanted, the companion she had felt she would never truly find in life. And with that revelation came the gnawing worry that she could only take leave from work for so many weeks before it became necessary to go back. She missed her Boston apartment, decorated to her taste, full of her books and her keepsakes, and missed Mr and Mrs Bensinger and their companionship but the notion of being parted from Rumple, of going to sleep without his fingers in her hair, talk out loud without him answering her and sharing her sombre sort of humour seemed like a bleak prospect.

Mayor Mill's proposal that she'd re-open and take charge of the library didn't really help matters. The mayor had some years ago adopted a baby, a young boy, and seemed to think it her duty to provide whatever he could possibly need for his childhood, improving the playground area at the local park, diverting as much money as she possibly could to the education budget and now, it seemed, lobbying for the opening of the library, widely considered as a money pit. Somehow Madame Mayor seemed to have guessed Belle was looking for a reason to remain in Storybrooke, crafting a proposal that counted on the other woman's generosity. It proposed that Belle would rent the property to the town at a ridiculously low price, provided city hall paid for the upkeep of the building, the renovation of the collection and the hiring of herself and an assistant. The salary was ridiculously low but the mayor knew money was not an issue with Belle.

Rumplestiltskin seemed positive she would accept the job and urged her to make plans, talking about the possibility of moving to the Queen Anne, much closer to the woods and on the same property line as the well. And though the idea appealed her there was something still scaring her about Storybrooke. Ironically it had nothing to do with the town's own demonic entity. There was something else, something on the back of her mind. A vague sense of danger, of threat. The utter certainty that something awful would happened to her if she remained.

She was still debating herself when Halloween rolled around. In spite of the heavy decorations around town she had barely noticed the holiday until Rumple told her one night, claws scratching pleasantly against her scalp, that during all Hallows eve he could appear fully to her.

"It's the one day were the shackles around me weaken enough, when I can fully wiggle my way into the corporeal plane. I can't really leave my clearing, can't walk around, but you'll be able to fully see me and touch me, meet me properly. Would you be interested?"

In spite of the impish mocking in his voice Belle got the feeling that he was being uncharacteristically vulnerable to her. Against every bit of her common sense, and with a tingling sense of excitement that she didn't wish to linger on, Belle dressed up warmly that Halloween night and made her way to the woods, letting basic instinct guide her like it had before. She stood watching the well for what it felt like hours until finally, in the distance, she heard the toll of the bells of the nearby convent strike midnight. And though at first nothing appeared to be happening slowly she saw a black, clawed hand emerge from inside the well, slowly gaining colour till it appeared scaly and glittery under the moonlight. She gasped, blood roaring in her ears as her attention centred squarely on the well, her eyes avidly taking in every inch of arm revealed as something crawled up from the bottom of the Earth.

So fixated was she on what she was seeing that she didn't at first notice the dizziness, nor the warm, wet feeling spreading on her back or the stinging, blossoming pain. One moment she was standing up and the next she was on the floor, struggling to breathe. Out of the corner of her eye she spotted another figure, standing strong and firm, all pretences of frailty gone. It was Cora Mills, smiling down at her, a bloodied knife in her hand and a cane in the other. With an air of detachment, she knelt next to her, taking her wrists and slicing them open, cutting her upper inner thighs as well and watching pleasantly as a dark pool of blood began to from around Belle.

"What he ever saw in some common little thing like you I'll never know, but you were never deserving of his time and attention. You were always supposed to die, a sacrificial lamb to pay for a life of success and wealth. And he does so hates when people go back on a deal. But I just couldn't let him settle for such a lowly vessel." She paused, pleased with the confusing spreading across her victim's face. "Oh, you didn't know, did you? When I encouraged your father to make that deal with the Dark One it was so that he could use your body as a vessel for his essence. I've always been his devout servant, so of course I wanted to provide him with means to circumvent his bondage. But it soon became apparent that he deemed you insufficient. Now my daughter has a young son, of perfect health. He'll make a much better vessel, especially now that I've managed to form such a deep link with him as his beloved grandma. That means it is my right to offer him in a deal to the Dark One. And when he rises my reward shall be great."

The old woman turned to look at the well, outside Belle's own line of vision. She could only see the shadow of Rumple's body as it emerged from the well, so familiar to her.

"Your blood, your life, will keep him well fed until Henry is of an age to serve. You were always supposed to die, one way or the other. If I had known killing your father would bring you here I would have done it so years ago. I so detest a loose end."

With great effort Belle shifted around till she was lying on her back. That way she was finally able to see Rumplestiltskin in all his glory. His green-gold, scaly skin, stretched taut over bony arms and sunken cheeks, was beautiful. As were his eyes, golden and bright, as if made of fire. His hair was long and slicked back, a tangle of hair, leaves and insects covered by a layer of what looked like tar. His head was tilted to the side, as if taking the scene before him in. His talon-like fingernails clicked together, the sound chilling. And yet Belle had never felt safer, even as she felt herself fading.

"I've killed her for you, Dark One. Her blood will keep you happy until I can deliver Henry to you and we can finally be together, like I've laboured so many years for."

Cora's impeccable composure broke then, an unhinged, crazed look taking over. There was fanaticism there, and naked, unabashed greed. It made Belle feel ridiculously territorial to see the other woman look at her Rumple like that.

"Cora, Cora, Cora. Such a precocious apprentice. So spirited, so ambitious..." Rumplestiltskin walked closer and closer to Mrs Mills, his unsettling eyes fixated on her. It wasn't until they narrowed and a clawed hand shot out and imbedded itself on her chest that the smile disappeared from her face. "So very, very wrong."

She was dead before hitting the ground, a look of shock in her face and her bloodied heart in Rumplestiltskin's hand. He crushed it, the wet, squishy sound it made making Belle nauseated. He dropped the organ a moment later, making a moue of disgust at the sight of the blood and tissue smeared on his hand, wiping it off on a nearby bit of moss. A moment later he was kneeling beside her, one of his hands gently angling her face so she could see him properly.

"Your blood smells so good, princess. Too good for this dirty forest floor."

For some reason this sounded hilarious to Belle and she laughed, the motion quickly being ruined by the blood filling her lungs, making her cough and choke. She closed her eyes, feeling her consciousness slipping.

"No, no, no, none of that. You're mine, precious, and I'm too greedy to let you go, ever." He paused, retrieving a sharp, crooked dagger out of thin air. "We'll just have to improvise, that's all. Now stay still, don't fidget."

With deft movements he cut open her coat completely, doing the same with her sweater, her warm woollen dress and her underwear, leaving her shivering in her thigh-high stockings and her practical boots. Straddling her waist, he took first one arm and then the other, carefully licking her open cuts until they were fully closed. He did the same with the knife wounds on her upper thighs, where both femoral arteries had been cut and bleeding profusely. When he saw her trembling he stretched down above her, petting her hair and telling her it would all be over soon, that she would be alright in no time.

"I knew the moment I first met you that you wouldn't do as a vessel. Far too spirited, far too interesting, far too intriguing to consider disposing of. Well-suited for a companion, someone to keep me company when I found the perfect vessel. When your father took you from me I was so angry. You were mine, he had given you to me, he had no power to do what he did. But I always knew you'd be back, that the string that binds you to me would tug you home. So I waited. And I was going to wait more for what I'm about to do but alas, princess, you've lost too much blood and there is no other way... Oh, goodie, time's up."

Instead of pitch black the clearing was now bathed in a weak, greyish light. With the arrival of dawn Rumplestiltskin began to lose corporeal form, turning into his usual shadowy self. As this happened he turned Belle to the side and sliced at the shadow her body cast on the floor, looking like he was trying to cut it out of her. To her surprised it seemed to work and she watched as her black reflection on the grass evaporated into nothing. A moment later he was pulling a needle and a spool or golden thread out of thin air and was sewing the shadowy soles of his feet to hers, though she was too numb to feel anything.

"This way you'll live and live and live. No sickness will take you from me, no accident rip you from my side. And with time you'll change, you'll become like me. And when you're nice and strong and you don't need me to sustain you I'll find a good vessel and we'll roam the Earth together. We'll have such a good time. I'll gobble you up nice and proper then, but this'll do for now. This'll do."


	3. Epilogue

Robbie Gold looked at the old, cracked kitchen clock and sighed, giving up his perch by the door and going to the small cot on the other side of the room, unsure whether he should try to wait for his father's return or simply go to bed without supper. He had thought things in the States would be better. Malcolm certainly had, talking to Robbie about what a great life they would have across the Atlantic. He had thought his papa meant that he was ready to leave behind his drinking and gambling, needing a clean break and as much distance from his creditors as possible to start anew. But life in Storybrooke, Maine was barely any different than his life in Glasgow. Still dirt poor, still barely more than a filthy street urchin in the eyes of the people, still rejected and avoided by everyone, guilty by association, a bad apple destined to fall not far from the rotten tree that was Malcolm Gold.

The mayor barely tolerated him, casting her eyes away when he was near and loudly telling her teenage son Henry to stay away from him whenever the older boy tried to offer some friendly gesture. The teachers often scolded him for not bringing the proper school supplies or having a complete uniform, deaf to his shameful and half-whispered explanation that his papa did not have enough money to buy his son school shoes or colouring pencils. People at the grocery store or at the pharmacy followed him with their eyes as if expecting to catch him shop-lifting at any given time. It was exactly like back in Scotland, only that living in a small time meant he couldn't just take the bus to some neighbourhood to avoid people who knew him. He hated Storybrooke and almost everything about it and yet he didn't really wish to go back. Glasgow might have had the advantage of anonymity but it didn't have Belle French. She was the most beautiful person in the world, he was sure, like a modern-day princess with her long, glossy hair, her pretty dresses and her kind, wide smiles. She was warm and affectionate with him, always leaning down to peck his cheek even though he was dirty and smelly, and letting him stay at the library after closing for as long as he wanted. She seemed to be interested in him in a special way which filled him with pride and secret joy.

Even though she looked like a pure princess there was something... off about her. Robbie had learned to read people, in order to identify those his papa angered and might be looking for payback. And so he'd almost immediately known Miss French was really odd. Though warm and nice and wonderful she didn't seem to interact much with people. Most would look at her curiously but avoid eye contact or getting caught, as if they were afraid of her. Her dog was weird too, too bony to realistically be alive, too sick-looking to move so fast or have eyes so intense. But above all the weirdest part of Miss French was her shadow. It just didn't quite fit or behave the way shadows were supposed to, almost as if it wasn't really hers.

He was determined to know what was wrong with Miss French. He daydreamt he'd grow up, rescue her from whatever darkness preyed over her and she'd marry him and they'd live happily ever after. Being ten years old he knew the librarian felt only a maternal sort of affection for him, but he would not remain ten forever, and he was sure if he could prove himself to her when he grew older he could make her love him like princesses loved princes. He wished it so fervently, so badly, that he'd even let himself be swept away in his papa's enthusiasm when he'd announced quite exuberantly that he'd found a way to "turn their lucks around", to have them living in the lap of luxury. It was an announcement Malcolm had made several times but in spite of previous failures Robbie found himself curling up in bed and wishing fervently for it to be true this time around. If it were his chances of making something of himself and proving his worth to Miss Belle would increase greatly. And it was why he was struggling to remain awake till his papa came home, in the off chance he brought good news with him. But he was too sleepy, his eyes growing heavy just as the lights flickered above him and something moved in the shadows.

"Hello, little Robbie..."


End file.
